Industrialization has defiantly made the average human life style easier, most people can now afford a comfortable life style and have nice things. But on the whole I don’t feel it has improved our society. People have got so out of touch with nature and self sufficiency. We as a society take it for granted that we can get what ever we want when ever we want, and everything is disposable. We have become complacent to the fact that over industrialization is causing a lot of harm and pollution. With industrialization comes waste, toxic chemicals, and pollution.

It is not just a thing that is happening somewhere else, it is happening all around us, and we are contributing to it. All you have to do is go shopping at a supermarket, look at all the packaging(i.e waste, potential pollution)

check where the produce you are buying is coming from. Calculate the air miles. Then say that industrialization has benefited the planet

Industrial scale farming, use of pesticides = diminishing bee population. If we loose the bees we won’t need pesticides as there will not be anything to use the pesticides on. Of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world’s food, more than 70 are pollinated by bees.

We can all say industrialization is good, and turn a blind eye to the negative. But at the end of the day we are only harming our selves .

William Morris- “What I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master’s man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain­slack brain workers, nor heart­sick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all – the realisation at last of the meaning of the word commonwealth.”

Nothing should be made by man’s labour which is not worth making; or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers. Simple as that proposition is, and obviously right as I am sure it must seem to you, you will find, when you come to consider the matter, that it is a direct challenge to the death to the present system of labour in civilized countries. That system, which I have called competitive Commerce, is distinctly a system of war; that is of waste and destruction: or you may call it gambling if you will, the point of it being that under it whatever a man gains he gains at the expense of some other man’s loss. Such a system does not and cannot heed whether the matters it makes are worth making; it does not and cannot heed whether those who make them are degraded by their work: it heeds one thing and only one, namely, what it calls making a profit; which word has got to be used so conventionally that I must explain to you what it really means, to wit the plunder of the weak by the strong! Now I say of this system, that it is of its very nature destructive of Art, that is to say of the happiness of life. Whatever consideration is shown for the life of the people in these days, whatever is done which is worth doing, is done in spite of the system and in the teeth of its maxims; and most true it is that we do, all of us, tacitly at least, admit that it is opposed to all the highest aspirations of mankind.

Here I think Morris is saying that the system is wrong. And that all should be equal, and that no one should benefit from another’s plight. That mankind can be better, that we do not have to walk over others to gain material wealth or happiness. If everyone was equal the world would be a better place.

What is the difference between Marxism and Socialism?

Oct 7, 2007, 12.00am IST

What is the difference between Marxism and Socialism?

Socialism is a modern doctrine and is Western in origin, emerging with the development of industrial capitalism at the start of the nineteenth century. Socialism denotes a broad system of ideas. Marxism is a materialistic conception of history which seeks to explain the development of all societies and furthermore, make predictions about future social change. Marxists consider the material world, nature and society as constantly moving. Whereas, the socialists emphasise the organic unity of society. Marxists consider the material world as an integrated whole in which all things and phenomena are interconnected and interdependent. Whereas, socialists believe in equality and abolition of private enterprise. Marxism provides a scientific explanation of nature and society and hence, was a powerful instrument for revolutionary transformation. The society envisaged by socialists rests on certain values: redistribution of wealth to get rid of inequality, cooperative production to get rid of selfish competitors and new patterns of work and education to promote the growth of well-rounded individuals.

Socialism has its attractions, but it also has its down side. I agree with Morris on the concept of equality which is lacking in a capitalist society. The capitalist state consists of a handful of elite ,who hold all the power and influence, Basic Communist ideology holds that the purpose of “the State” is to enforce social and economic disparity. According to Marxist thinking the State developed as a tool for a minority of people to oppress other people.

It is in the age of shepherds, in the second period of society, that the inequality of fortune first begins to take place, and introduces among men a degree of authority and subordination which could not possibly exist before. It thereby introduces some degree of that civil government which is indispensably necessary for its own preservation: and it seems to do this naturally, and even independent of the consideration of that necessity. The consideration of that necessity comes no doubt afterwards to contribute very much to maintain and secure that authority and subordination. The rich, in particular, are necessarily interested to support that order of things which can alone secure them in the possession of their own advantages. Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and herdsmen feel that the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all

The Arts and Crafts Movement was one of the most influential, profound and far-reaching design movements of modern times. The Arts and Crafts Movement (1850-1900) was a reaction against the Industrial Revolution.

The invention of the steam engine led to the mechanization of industry, agriculture and transportation and changed the life of the working man in Britain. Due to the influx of workers from the countryside looking for work in the cities, The cities and towns grew. However, living standards got worse. Many folk from the country had sacrificed their rural life style for jobs in the factories and mils of the Industrial Revolution.

The members of the Arts and Crafts Movement included architects, designers, artists, craftsmen and writers. They feared that industrialization was destroying the traditional skills and crafts, They believed that hand crafted objects were superior to those made by machine. And that the craftsman who made things by hand had a better quality of life than those that slaved away in the mills and factories. They were convinced that the industrial lack of artistic standards were to blame for the nation’s social and moral decline.

The Arts and Crafts Movement was also a reaction against the poor quality of design during the Industrial Revolution.

The Crafts Guilds

The Journal of the Century Guild

Hobby Horse (Edition No1, April 1884)

The Arts and Crafts Movement formed into various crafts guilds to try to recreate the dignified working environment that existed in the medieval crafts guilds. They gave themselves names such as the Century Guild, the Guild of Saint George, the Art Workers Guild and the Guild of Handicraft.

The Century Guild was the first of the craft guilds- It was founded in 1882,in 1884 the guild published a quaterly journal called(hobby horse)to promote their ideas.

The art workers guild-promoted art and craft in mainstream education. The members of this guild mainly consisted of lecturers and principals from leading art schools.The integration of design with art education is one of the great legacies of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The down fall of the arts and crafts movement was due to their aversion to modern methods of production, and their constantly looking to the past. Their socialist ideals could only fail as hand produced design was to expensive to produce ,this resulted in the fact that only the rich could afford to buy it.

The arts and craft movement did however leave behind the legacy of good design and its relationship with society. This would later be used to produce good design through industrial mass production.

For the design student, the Bauhaus Movement is considered one of the most important design movements in the twentieth century.

The Bauhaus was created from in Germany as a reaction to the art and crafts developments in Britain. Bauhaus was one of a hundred specialist art education institutions at the time, however, the Bauhaus focused on reforming arts education into a defined course. The institute believed that students should not specialize in one area of study but learn broadly across all artistic disciplines.

The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius it was his aim to unify arts and craftsmanship within an educational program, this still influences design universities today. The aim of his idea was to remove social differences and create a better world where design is created by humans for humans through the overcoming of overstated individualism and exploitation of the masses for the advantage of a few people(Grohn 1992)

In the Early 18th century British industries were generally small scale and relatively unsophisticated. Most manufacturing was done in homes or small, rural shops, using hand tools or simple machines. Most textile production, for example, was centred on small workshops or in the homes of spinners, weavers and dyers(this was cottage industry) .

Cottage industry involved thousands of individual manufacturers. With different regions specialising in different products, metal production in the Midlands, for example, and coal mining in the North-East.

When we think of the industrial revolution we think of coal and steam power. We think of factories belching out coal smoke, This was true in the later part of the revolution.

At the beginning of the revolution if you look at Richard Arkwright you will see differently.

In 1768, Richard Arkwright invented the spinning frame that could produce multiple threads at once. The first models were powered by waterwheels so the device came to be first known as the water frame. It was the first powered, automatic, and continuous textile machine and enabled the move away from small home manufacturing towards factory production. Arkwright built his first textile mill in Cromford, England in 1774. He used the water out of the lead mines to power his mills as the mine water came out of the ground warm, this meant his mills could run all year round, without the risk of freezing.

Arkwright found that In Cromford there were not enough local people to supply Arkwright with the workers he needed. After building a large number of cottages close to the factory, he imported workers from all over Derbyshire , While the women and children worked in his spinning-factory, the men worked at home turning the yarn into cloth. Arkwright played his workers with Spanish doubloons over stamped with Arkwright’s stamp, these coins were worth 4 and nine pence, this coinage could only be spent at Arkwright’s establishments, which meant all profits came back to Arkwright.

The Mill at Cromford is recognised as an internationally important site of the Industrial Revolution.

It was the world’s first successful cotton spinning mill that was based on water power. Arkwright became known as the ‘Father of the factory system’

The industrial revolution boomed with the invention of steam power, the steam engine, the railways and canals .

Cottage industries were pushed to the brink of extinction, as mass produced goods were cheaper and faster to produce.

Working conditions in during the revolution were not very good and in some cases were horrific. The living conditions of most workers was no better. Child labour abounded.it was all part and parcel of the average working class life.

The industrial revolution also brought about the luddite riots, luddites were a group of people who wanted to get rid of the new machinery that was causing unemployment .they destroyed thousands of machines,

In 1812, a law was passed by the House of Lords, called the Frame-Breaking Act. This act made the breaking of frames punishable by death.

Artist: Peter Jackson

Medium: Watercolour on Board

Size: 11″ x 14″ (270mm x 360mm)

Date: 1965

The luddites did however bring the flaws of the Industrial Revolution to the surface and the government could no longer ignore the opinions of the working class.